AHC: Fewer European Languages...

archaeogeek

Banned
And even the Arabic world is less monoglot than appears.
It is far more akin to the development of the Romance languages:

Classical Arabic (the language of the Qu'ran) cf Classical Latin
Modern Standard Arabic cf Late/Early Mediaeval Latin
Colloquial Arabic dialects cf Vulgar Latin dialects

Heh, yes, Arabic is a macro-language in the same vein Latin was after the fall of the empire.
 
In addition, one of the reason the Latin realms developed their own languages is because the Church insisted on maintaining a pure form of Latin and not moving with the times. That meant it stopped influencing the vulgar languages, which then moved apart further.

I don't understand how a Church allowing changes to Latin would lead to Latin surviving as a spoken language throughout Europe.

I suspect that the Church trying to keep it static is why it did as well as it did OTL. After all, it's lasted over 2,000 years with close to the same grammar and pronunciation. It was even adequate for communicating new scientific concepts as late as the 18th century, if not later.

If the Church allows Latin to change, then all that's going to do is make the inevitable dialects more official much earlier. Bibles would be published in vernacular much earlier, etc. This would have its own repercussions.

Alternatively, they could just stick to one dialect, probably the dialect of Rome, as the official dialect. But, you'd still find languages like French and Spanish developing as government languages in their countries.

A surviving Roman Empire could keep Latin as a bureaucratic language as well as liturgical, but assuming that this is done through a dynasty mechanism like China, the current 'standard' is going to be based on the homeland of the ruling dynasty. It's not going to be Latin as it was spoken 2,000 years ago, and it will still differ greatly from the languages spoken by the common people outside of the ruling home.

As is, I suspect it's possible to have fewer 'official' and 'standard' European languages. However, the variance in vernacular dialects is going to be pretty much the same... even if some language families like Romance or Germanic happen to have a wider geographic spread.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
I don't understand how a Church allowing changes to Latin would lead to Latin surviving as a spoken language throughout Europe.

I suspect that the Church trying to keep it static is why it did as well as it did OTL. After all, it's lasted over 2,000 years with close to the same grammar and pronunciation. It was even adequate for communicating new scientific concepts as late as the 18th century, if not later.

The pronunciation changed tremendously, and outside of Britain, most scientists moved on to the vernacular after the renaissance (hell, there's anglican chorals in latin that only scan if you mangle latin/speak it like RP English).
 
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Eurofed

Banned
I would guess a much more successful Roman Empire which ends up becoming into some Eurofed-esque European analogue to China. Always breaking apart ever so often, uniting under some powerful general.

Wow, I have become somewhat of a board meme. :eek:

Anyway, yes, one of your best options to reduce the cultural/linguistic plurality of western Eurasia as drastically as reasonably possible is to have a much more successful Roman Empire that manages to assimilate Germania up to the Vistula-Dniester line and Mesopotamia-Arabia up to the Zagros mountains, and experiences an Imperial China-like evolutionary path.

Celtic languages would get extinct, or quite possibly only survive in Hibernia/Caledonia if Rome never bothers to conquer them up to modern times. Germanic languages would get extinct as well, or quite possibly only survive in Scandinavia if Rome never bothers to conquer it up to modern times. Berber and Semitic languages would be wiped out as well. Egyptian may or may not survive as a regional minority language, due to its cultural prestige and area entrenchment. Hebrew may or may survive as well, depending on how much the Jew community manages to resists assimilation within a successful Roman Empire.

You'd get a huge bilingual, culturally unified imperial blob, perhaps remaining politically unified up to modern times, with occasional periods of disunity, perhaps suffering a prermanent West-East division at some point, with Latin getting universal diffusion in the western half (Western-Central Europe, Maghreb) and Greek in the eastern half (Greece, Egypt, Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Arabia). The Balkans would probably be a hybrid border area, and most educated people getting at least basic bilingual fluency.

On its northeastern borders, assuming that Rome never manages/bothers to expand into Sarmatia till some kind of Rus-like polity arises and unifies it, you'd get some kind of Gothic-Norse, Slavic, Iranic, or Turkic language, or quite possibly an hybrid of any or all of the above, depending on which culture gets to become regional overlord.

On its southeastern borders, assuming that Rome never manages/bothers to conquer Persia, you'd get the Persian area of course. If Rome eventually does manage to conquer Persia, say in early modern times, Persian could instead become the third language of the Roman Empire instead, surviving thanks to its cultural prestige and area entrenchment, albeit much less widespread than Latin and Greek and limited to regional diffusion.
 
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archaeogeek

Banned
Wow, I have become somewhat of a board meme. :eek:

Anyway, yes, one of your best options to reduce the cultural/linguistic plurality of western Eurasia as drastically as reasonably possible is to have a much more successful Roman Empire that manages to assimilate Germania up to the Vistula-Dniester line and Mesopotamia-Arabia up to the Zagros mountains, and experiences an Imperial China-like evolutionary path.

Celtic languages would get extinct, or quite possibly only survive in Hibernia/Caledonia if Rome never bothers to conquer them up to modern times. Germanic languages would get extinct as well, or quite possibly only survive in Scandinavia if Rome never bothers to conquer it up to modern times. Berber and Semitic languages would be wiped out as well. Egyptian may or may not survive as a regional minority language, due to its cultural prestige and area entrenchment. Hebrew may or may survive as well, depending on how much the Jew community manages to resists assimilation within a successful Roman Empire.

You'd get a huge bilingual, culturally unified imperial blob, perhaps remaining politically unified up to modern times, with occasional periods of disunity, perhaps suffering a prermanent West-East division at some point, with Latin getting universal diffusion in the western half (Western-Central Europe, Maghreb) and Greek in the eastern half (Greece, Egypt, Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Arabia). The Balkans would probably be a hybrid border area, and most educated people getting at least basic bilingual fluency.

On its northeastern borders, assuming that Rome never manages/bothers to expand into Sarmatia till some kind of Rus-like polity arises and unifies it, you'd get some kind of Gothic-Norse, Slavic, Iranic, or Turkic language, or quite possibly an hybrid of any or all of the above, depending on which culture gets to become regional overlord.

On its southeastern borders, assuming that Rome never manages/bothers to conquer Persia, you'd get the Persian area of course. If Rome eventually does manage to conquer Persia, say in early modern times, Persian could instead become the third language of the Roman Empire instead, surviving thanks to its cultural prestige and area entrenchment, albeit much less widespread than Latin and Greek and limited to regional diffusion.

My mind and my linguistics education cringed in pain at the idea. Also, Chinese is not a language, it's a language group.
 
Hey, I said that seven posts earlier. Does no-one read my posts? :mad:

I saw it! I missed the multiquote button, sorry.

I often feel that way too ;).

I think it is more that InfiniteApe didn't add your quote with Yelnoc's because he skimmed over responses rather than read them fully.

NOT SO, ACCUSER!

Wow, I have become somewhat of a board meme. :eek:

Anyway, yes, one of your best options to reduce the cultural/linguistic plurality of western Eurasia as drastically as reasonably possible is to have a much more successful Roman Empire that manages to assimilate Germania up to the Vistula-Dniester line and Mesopotamia-Arabia up to the Zagros mountains, and experiences an Imperial China-like evolutionary path.

Celtic languages would get extinct, or quite possibly only survive in Hibernia/Caledonia if Rome never bothers to conquer them up to modern times. Germanic languages would get extinct as well, or quite possibly only survive in Scandinavia if Rome never bothers to conquer it up to modern times. Berber and Semitic languages would be wiped out as well. Egyptian may or may not survive as a regional minority language, due to its cultural prestige and area entrenchment. Hebrew may or may survive as well, depending on how much the Jew community manages to resists assimilation within a successful Roman Empire.

You'd get a huge bilingual, culturally unified imperial blob, perhaps remaining politically unified up to modern times, with occasional periods of disunity, perhaps suffering a prermanent West-East division at some point, with Latin getting universal diffusion in the western half (Western-Central Europe, Maghreb) and Greek in the eastern half (Greece, Egypt, Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Arabia). The Balkans would probably be a hybrid border area, and most educated people getting at least basic bilingual fluency.

On its northeastern borders, assuming that Rome never manages/bothers to expand into Sarmatia till some kind of Rus-like polity arises and unifies it, you'd get some kind of Gothic-Norse, Slavic, Iranic, or Turkic language, or quite possibly an hybrid of any or all of the above, depending on which culture gets to become regional overlord.

On its southeastern borders, assuming that Rome never manages/bothers to conquer Persia, you'd get the Persian area of course. If Rome eventually does manage to conquer Persia, say in early modern times, Persian could instead become the third language of the Roman Empire instead, surviving thanks to its cultural prestige and area entrenchment, albeit much less widespread than Latin and Greek and limited to regional diffusion.

This is a good option, but even with High Latin as a lingua franca Vulgar Latin is still going to crumble into various dialects so distinct as to become different languages and this is what I'm trying to reduce rather than avoid. So, "Latinized Greek" in the east, A Franco-Iberian Latin in the west, and a Franco-Italian tinged High Latin in OTL's Italy and France?

I'd also like to retain an unsplit "West Germanic Language" analog sounding similar to Old English and Old German combined and evolving similarly over time to create a kind of Anglo-Deutsch. Is this possible after a later fracture of a stronger/bigger Roman Empire?

Assuming Rome conquers all of Brittania and Germania, the movement of language basis may be similar to a point and the two provinces would share not only a cultural heritage but a feeling of common "outsider" status in the Empire - perhaps leading to a joint attempt at independence eventually.

I like the China comparisons but there was a thread recently comparing a Unified Europe to China and I don't recall it being very well accepted...
 
It mostly had to do with the issues of uniting Europe in the first place and reforming it once it breaks up.

When "reasonably possible" and "conquest of vast areas that will be incredibly difficult to hold" are used together, you should be worried.

You could get a situation in which most European languages are Latin-based, but actually eliminating them...not without welding together a common culture to such an extent as to eliminate regionalism, which is hard even within only say, France. Or Germany.

So long as there are distinct cultures, distinct languages are almost a given.
 
NOT SO, ACCUSER!
My apologies, good chap :eek:

It mostly had to do with the issues of uniting Europe in the first place and reforming it once it breaks up.

When "reasonably possible" and "conquest of vast areas that will be incredibly difficult to hold" are used together, you should be worried.

You could get a situation in which most European languages are Latin-based, but actually eliminating them...not without welding together a common culture to such an extent as to eliminate regionalism, which is hard even within only say, France. Or Germany.

So long as there are distinct cultures, distinct languages are almost a given.

Yes.
A thing to think about is that the tendency for languages to dialectalise is increased by the number of speakers and decreased by ease of communication across the zone of speakers.

That is variations in speech will become more pronounced across generations the more isolated they are from the cultural centre.
And this is more exacerbated by additional (and possibly opposing) cultural centres and cultural influences carried over by naturalised speakers.
 
Julius Caesar does a better job of removing the Celts and Gauls from existance.

Funny, I always thought people lived in that country south of mine, but I must be mistaken.

The easiest to kill off would be Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic and Welsh (in that order) A UK that was much more pro-english language and for longer would of easily killed off Scottish Gaelic and Welsh.

You'd think forcing most of the population base abroad and then attacking the language in the education system for decades was pretty thorough, but whatever.

If you delay Irish independence or it becomes independent peacefully, then there wouldn't as much nationalism, therefore no protection of the Irish Language.

Nationalism and the language movement became entangled in the latter 19th century. There were people who filled out the 1911 census entirely in Irish (some of them Dublin bourgeoisie), and they were able to, whereas Scottish Gaelic at the time nobody in officialdom gave a shit about precisely because it wasn't associated with such an important political tendency.
 
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Does Basque count? Basque is an outstanding example of linguistic survivability. Brought up to point out that languages are a lot harder to get rid of than one might think.

How about: The Magyars win at the battle of Lichfield. They go on to terrorize Europe for a few decades, then disappear like all the other ponyboys before and since. That's one oddball language out of the way.

(Sidenote to IBC, why does Hungary have a lighthouse? :confused:)
 
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